Sipko Melissen

Kafka op Norderney. Essays by the Dutch writer Sipko Melissen contains three essays about holidays by Franz Kafka. None of Kafka's major works would have been published if it had not been for Max Brod, Kafka's best friend, who was also a writer. Brod later also edited Kafka's diaries and collections of letters. In shifting, though mainly preserving Kafka's estate Brod created the Kafka as he is known today.

Sipko Melissen shows how little we actually know about Kafka, although being so famous, we all think we know a lot about him. However, there are long periods, when Kafka either wrote very little, or books and diaries have not been preserved. Besides, the interest in Kafka developed relatively late. Thus, in the second essay Melissen argues that another Dutch author Willem Frederik Hermans may have overlooked or missed clues to our knowledge about Kafka because references to Kafka's stay in Merano did not exist at the time of Herman's visit.

The book by Melissen contains three essays about three trips by Kafka, namely to Venice, to Merano in northern Italy and to Norderney, one of the Frisian islands that are part of Germany. The essays about Kafka is Merano is more about W.F. Herman's writings about Kafka. At the time of Kafka's visit, Merano, then named Meran was a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Sud-Tirol, where people spoke German.

The most astonishing and revealing of the three essays is the first essay, about Kafka in Venice. In Loves of Franz Kafka Nahum Glatzer already demonstrated that Kafka had very strained relationships with women. Although he started relationships with beautiful young women again and again, and thus had many girlfriends and women in his life, he did not marry them. Each time, relationships broke down. Kafka also did not have sex with these women. In fact, Glatzer writes that Kafka was revolted by the idea of having sex with women. He felt sex with women was disgusting.

Melissen does not write about any of this, but shows that Kafka had a keen interest in young men. Melissen cites excerpts of letters that were censored by Brod before publication. Melissen also shows that many other letters are either missing or miss passages, which may have contained other clues about Kafka's feelings for or about some of his male friends.

Melissen shows how careful thinking and looking for clues may still bring new facts or ideas about an author such as Kafka to light, even though people believe an authoritative biography has been written. Any writer can pursue aspects of the life and times of famous writers from the past and make new contributions to the understanding of their lives and work.… (mais)

Helm ontmoet na lange tijd zijn jeugdvriend Andreas weer. Helm heeft zijn liefde voor Andreas nooit uitgesproken en ze waren elkaar uit het oog verloren. Andreas is getrouwd en woont in Hamburg. Helm is journalist en doet onderzoek naar kunstenaars die in WO II op de lijst van Entartete Kunst stonden. Op een schilderij van Max Beckmann meent hij zijn moeder te herkennen. Samen met Andreas gaat hij op onderzoek uit.
Ik had gedacht dat het verhaal spannender zou zijn. Het voelde een beetje alsof ik weer een boek aan het lezen was voor de eindexamenlijst.
De schrijver gebruikt regelmatig beeldspraak, bijvoorbeeld '... In het decor van de stad werd een stuk opgevoerd waarin niemand ooit de naam uitsprak van de hoofdpersoon waar het hele stuk om draaide....'… (mais)